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The goal of this website is to list information about national and local organizations that are focusing on issues in the American Black community.

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September 2010

September 20, 2010

It bothered the Rev. Henry E. Green that, for some African-American boys, going to jail before they reached the age of 20 seemed to be an accepted rite of passage. He watched sadly, correcting wherever and whenever possible, the young boys walking the street with their pants hanging below their buttocks.

Green, then the senior pastor of Mt. Hermon AME Church in Miami Gardens, had a dream. He wanted to build a school where boys could be taught, at a young age, how to grow up to be responsible men.

Before he could bring the dream to fruition, Green was appointed presiding elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Tampa District of Florida. But before he moved on, Green shared his dream with the Rev. John F. White II, who succeeded him at Mt. Hermon, 17800 NW 25th Ave.

White accepted the challenge to make it possible.

“We praise God for Rev. Green and his vision,” White said. “We've tried to pick up the mantle and carry it forward.”

He and his congregation organized the Mount Hermon Community Education Corporation in 2007 with the mission: To save the children.

Salvation would come through developing and mentoring urban youth by providing quality education and educational support programs in economically disadvantaged communities.

“The vision was to focus on early education," said the Rev. Paul Wiggins, an associate pastor at Mt. Hermon and executive director of the corporation.

September 17, 2010

Their name reminds many of the once-popular group of singers, but this band of brothers is more about teaching success than singing.

Boys to Men was founded at Aurora East High School in 2002, a year that saw 25 people in that city killed by violence. The mentoring group's founder says the idea was spurred by emotion and anger.

"We realize that no matter what race you are, no matter what side of town you live on, every boy wants to become a man," said Clayton Muhammad. "We got so tired of going to funeral after funeral of young people, we should be going to graduation parties."

In about eight years, Boys to Men has spread to a dozen suburban area schools and about 200 young men have been through the program. All of them graduated high school, and the majority went on to college or the military.

Meliton Chaidez is a Junior member. Boys to Men helped him get a poem he wrote about his father into the Library of America. The soon-to-be seventh grader said his mentors have taught him a lot about what's life is like as an adult.

He was fighting at school, experimenting with drugs and had seen people shot and stabbed. Still, he would drag himself out of bed on weekends to attend a young men's mentoring program at his church.

"I would do all this in school, and yet, for some reason, I was still drawn to the program," said Harrison, 23. "I would wake up Saturday and go in there and they'd say, ‘Hey, how you doing?' ... and I would tell them what happened."

Harrison credits the program, Rites of Passage, for helping him make it through that part of his life. A member of the first class, he is among more than 80 people who have attended the program since it began in 2000.

This week, the three-year program for black teens, offered through the People's Community Baptist Church in Silver Spring, celebrates its 10th anniversary. It was created to instill long-range values in its participants, said program Cofounder Norman Jones.